The Rich Roll Podcast - Addiction Is Not A Choice: Dr. Gabor Maté’s Call for A Compassionate & Holistic Approach To Healing

Episode Date: October 26, 2015

What if everything you presuppose about addiction is wrong? Enter Gabor Maté. World renowned lecturer, physician and bestselling author, today's guest is a highly distinguished, in demand and at times controversial authority with a wealth of expertise on a range of topics that span addiction, stress and childhood development. With over twelve years of first hand experience working up close and personal on Vancouver's skid row with patients severely challenged by hard core drug addictions, mental illness and HIV, Dr. Maté has cultivated a powerful yet eminently commonsensical perspective on this devastating affliction that contravenes conventional medical dogma. A perspective that begins with a single edict: Addiction is not a choice. Moreover, addiction has little to do with illicit substances. It's just not about drugs. Or gambling, or shopping, or porn or whatever behavior happens to, in the words of Dr. Maté, incinerate the lives of millions. Instead, addiction is about the emotional pain behind the behavior. And healing is about confronting the past and untangling the circumstances that drive the individual to self-medicate in maddening defiance of all reason and logic. Based on cutting edge science, case studies and a wealth of personal experience, Dr. Maté concludes that addiction is a predisposition programmed in early years — an infestation that lurks miles beyond choice. A disease rooted neither in genetics nor free will but rather in environmental factors that hard wire brain neurochemistry during formative childhood development. Accordingly, those that suffer should not be shamed or criminalized, but instead treated in the same way we approach anyone suffering from cancer or an autoimmune disease — not with blame but rather with compassion, sympathy and medical intervention. As an author, Dr. Maté has written extensively on the subjects of addiction, early childhood development & trauma, attention deficit disorder, and the relationship between stress and disease. His most recent award-winning book, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction* (a #1 bestseller in Canada) mixes personal stories with science to present a radical re-envisioning of addiction not as a discrete phenomenon confined to an unfortunate or weak-willed few, but as a continuum that runs throughout (and perhaps underpins) our society at large; not a medical “condition” distinct from the lives it affects, but rather the result of a complex interplay among personal history, emotional, and neurological development, brain chemistry, and the drugs (and behaviors) of addiction. In other words, it's complicated. There is no miracle cure. There is no quick fix. But hope breathes in compassion and self-understanding — the first key to promoting healing and wellness, Dr. Maté's work — and this book in particular — have been absolutely revelatory in helping me better understand myself, my personal history with addiction, and my ever evolving quest for greater well being. He changed my life. And I truly believe his message holds the power to improve the lives of anyone personally or tangentially impacted by addiction. And let's face it — in this day and age that includes almost everyone. Enjoy! Rich

Addiction in every case, whether it's the severe addiction of the heroin addicts that I dealt with, or the respectable addictions of the workaholic, these are always based in trauma. That is physician, author, and addiction medicine specialist Gabor Mate. And this is the Rich Roll. This is my podcast. Welcome. Thank you for tuning in. I greatly appreciate it. What do we do here? Well, each week I sit down with the rule breakers, the paradigm breakers, the people that are pushing the boundaries, who are moving things forward in the world of health, nutrition, diet, science, technology, basically people who inspire me to do and be better. And that's kind of the theme, the underlying theme behind all of

this to help all of us unlock and unleash our best, most authentic self. Thanks so much to all of you guys who have been spreading the word about the podcast. It really means a lot to me. If you haven't done so already, take a moment, give us a review on iTunes. That really helps us out a lot, ironically, for some bizarre reason in terms of the whole iTunes algorithm thing. And thank you for using the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. Greatly appreciate that as well. It doesn't cost you anything extra. Just a really cool, easy, simple way to support this mission.

Thank you so much to everybody who has made that a practice. I just got off a plane from Europe, from Paris. I'm in Boston right now. I'm giving a speech in like an hour at the Boston VegFest. I can't tell if it's three o'clock in the afternoon or three o'clock in the morning. I'm so upside down in terms of time. So I just thought I would take a moment and record the intro to this week's podcast in my hotel room here in Boston. You can hear the sirens outside and perhaps the cleaning staff outside my door. Not the quietest environment to record, but hey, we're going with it, right? And I'm just happy and proud to share with you today's conversation.

This one I've been anticipating for quite some time. I'm really excited about it. The amazing, world-renowned, best-selling author, lecturer, and addiction medicine specialist, Dr. Gabor Mate on the show today. This guy has really shifted my perspective on addiction, drug addiction in particular, behavior addiction, through his amazing best-selling books. best-selling books. He is a guy who's on the cutting edge of addiction medicine research with some really fascinating, somewhat controversial, but I think quite revelatory ideas about the nexus, in particular, the nexus between early childhood development and drug and behavior addictions later in life. And I'm going to get into it a little bit more in a minute, but first... little bit more in a minute, but first. All right, Gabor Mate. Very excited to have this gentleman on the show today. I've been an admirer and a follower for some time. Who is he? Well, he's a physician, a renowned speaker, bestselling author, and very distinguished and sought-after and at times controversial expert in the conversations that swirl and revolve around drugs, addiction,

stress, childhood development, treatment, and therapy. This is a guy with over 20 years of medical practice and family and palliative care, a guy who has decades of intimate, firsthand experience working with and treating super hardcore drug addicts people that are also often challenged by things like mental illness and hiv he is also the best-selling author of a number of books on addiction early childhood development and trauma attention deficit disorder and the relationship between stress and disease i'm going to put links up to all of these books in the show notes, so definitely go to check that out.

His most recent award-winning book is called In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, Close Encounters with Addiction. This book was a number one bestseller in Canada and absolutely revelatory for myself. It changed my life. And I think it has the potential to have that impact on anybody who experiences addiction firsthand or has close ones in their life who suffer, which is pretty much everybody these days. I find Dr. Mate's insights really compelling,

specifically his reliance on cutting-edge science as well as case studies and his own personal experience to explore the idea that the source of addictions is not to be found in the genes but originates instead in the early childhood environment that addiction is complex that there is no quick fix and that we should be advocating for a more compassionate approach to addicts, addiction, and treatment. Dr. Mate is a super busy guy. It took a little bit of effort to lock him down for this interview. He was gracious enough to grant me one hour. And so I made the trip up to Vancouver just to do the interview, and I'm really glad I did. I loved meeting him. I loved talking to him.

And I really hope that I made the best of this opportunity for you guys. So without further ado, enjoy my conversation with Dr. Gabor Mate. Thank you so much for taking the time. I know you're a busy guy. I've been wanting to sit down with you for quite some time, so I really appreciate it. I'm fascinated by your work. You've been an inspiration to me in helping to understand or better understand my own travails and struggles and triumphs through addiction, and your work is important. So thank you.

Pleasure to be here. Thank you. I thought we could start out with kind of explaining a little bit about, before we get into, there's so many things I want to talk about, but just in reference to your book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, you have such a beautiful poetic way that you open it in explaining what that title means in the context of the Buddhist wheel of life. So could you sort of elaborate on that? Yeah, so in some Buddhist cosmologies, we're seen as cycling through six realms in our lives as human beings. There's the human realm, which is our ordinary selves. You might say our everyday selves.

There's the animal realm, which is our drives, our appetites, our urges, our sexuality, our need to eat, and so on. There are other realms, including the hell realm, which is that of suffering, rage, despair, terror, all the uncomfortable emotions that humans can experience to the nth degree. There are other realms, but the hungry ghost realm is one in which the creatures are depicted as ones with small, tiny mouths, scrawny necks, so very narrow gullets, and huge, empty bellies.

So they can never get enough. So they're always hungry. And they're ghosts. They're always like they're sort of haunting their lives, looking for fulfillment from the outside, but never being able to achieve it, of course. And that's the realm of addictions. Yeah, it's so haunting and specific and perfectly captures,

I think, what my experience has been. That empty, cavernous, black hole that you're constantly feeding and yet can never be satiated. You know, what's interesting is I'm just rereading for the I don't know how many time Dante's Inferno. And Dante begins his journey by being stuck, being lost, and barring his way from our spiritual growth and ourselves is is obviously universal right because dante is coming from a medieval christian perspective right right right but he's talking about the same thing and the very first uh the second circle of hell in Dante, as people suffer because of their karmic accumulation on earth, are people who are gluttonous. And because they put all their attention on trying to feed themselves,

rather than on... From the external. From the outside. So that this idea of the suffering that we create for ourselves by seeking satisfaction, fulfillment, and satiation from the outside, it's absolutely universal. Yeah, and kind of taking that image and lining it up against the people that you will see.

Like if you've ever experienced being around hardcore addicts, that hollowness of the eyes, and you have amazing pictures in your book that really capture what that is like. That sort of explanation from the Buddhist wheel is so apropos to that real life experience of what you see if you go to Skid Row or do the work that you do and the people that you interact with. Well, and not only Skid Row. I mean, I don't know if you ever looked at our prime minister recently,

but he's got hollow dead eyes as well. Yeah. And it's interesting how it's become like this sort of fodder for the internet and a sort of meme and a joke, but it's quite tragic because meanwhile this guy's on a march towards death. Yeah. But really, my contention is that we enter the hungry ghost realm, and I think we all do, depending on when and for how long and to what degree, but we all do, it's our escape from the hell realm. So that if we didn't go there, we'd be in hell.

So it's a desperate and unsuccessful attempt to overcome the suffering of hell. Right, and I think that kind of dovetails nicely into really a foundational aspect of your work, which is reframing the question around addiction. And instead of asking, you know, why the addiction, asking, you know, why the pain? And this sort of more expansive perspective on what addiction is. So maybe elaborate on your perspective of what's wrong with our kind of conventional

wisdom around the idea of addiction and where your kind of philosophy and ideas come in. Well, traditional wisdom around addiction is either the legalistic one that has it as a bad choice that people make from which they have to be deterred by means of severe punishment. Hence, we got the so-called criminal justice system, which, by the way, I think is a good title. It is a criminal system. The justice system is criminal, the way it treats people.

Well, specifically addicts, sort of further traumatizing the people that are most traumatized. That's the whole point, yeah, and who make up a large percentage of the jail population. So in Canada, it's not surprising, and the same thing is in the States. In Canada, 30% of our jail population is First Nations origin, whereas Aboriginal make up 5% of the Canadian population. So we're taking the most traumatized people and we're jailing them, and we think that's justice. Yeah,'s like crazy statistics in saskatchewan

right well in the prairie province is even higher yeah it's just like 60 70 80 percent of people in jail are natives they're 10 15 of the population right uh now the point though is that that's the legalistic view that addiction is a choice and people need to be punished when they engage in addiction behave addiction related behaviors they're very addiction being illegal now the other perspective that seems different is that it's a addiction is a brain disease that you largely inherit so it's not your fault because you can't help what genes you inherit but it's a disease of the brain that arises in the brain, partly for genetic, partly for other reasons. And what both of those perspectives share, though,

different as they are, what they share is that in either case we're looking at people's life histories and we're not looking at social history or the history of a country or a nation. So who are the populations that are most severely affected and what happened to them? And who are the individuals that are most severely affected and what happened to them? Now, my perspective is that addictions are attempts to soothe pain in every case. In fact, the drugs are specifically painkillers, cocaine, numbs and

nerve endings, opiates, heroin, these are painkillers, alcohol is a painkiller, cannabis is a painkiller. Crystal meth diverts you from the experience of emotional suffering by making you feel more alive and excited temporarily. So it's always not why the addiction, as you said, but why the pain. Keith Richards, when he about his heroin had a habit in his book life which is autobiography he said and I'm almost quoting verbatim he said the contortions we go through just not to be ourselves for a few hours now why would people not want to be themselves because they're not comfortable in their own skins why are they not comfortable in their own skins because they suffered in their own skins. Why are they not comfortable in their own skins? Because they suffered in their own skins at some point

when they couldn't help it. So what I'm saying is that addiction in every case, whether it's the severe addiction of the heroin addicts that I dealt with or the respectable addictions of the workaholic of the workaholic or probably free to mention that you talked about your own addiction at some point to extreme endurance sports and these are always based in trauma. So any attempt to escape the present moment has to do with discomfort that we incurred as children and there are degrees of discomfort, degrees of trauma, but fundamentally addiction is always an attempt to escape suffering.

So it's not the problem. Addiction is not the problem. No, the addiction is the manifestation of the addiction is the solution to the problem. It's an attempt. And it works until it doesn't work anymore. It works temporarily. In fact, that's my definition of addiction. It's a temporary relief, pleasure,

craving that is satisfied momentarily but creates negative consequences in the long term and you can't give it up. That's what an addiction is. But yeah, that's what it is. It's an attempted solution. It's not the primary problem. And so to say that addiction is a primary brain disease,

which is the official medical perspective that I was trained in misses the whole point but then again the medical profession notoriously does not understand trauma well it's not it's its focus isn't directed in that in that in that locus sphere i suppose well. Well, but only as an artifact of denial because the research is totally clear. It's not that I'm giving you personal insights. I mean, I am, but these insights are very much also supported and grounded in a vast body of literature. And whether we're talking about addiction or cancer,

you can look back to negative childhood experiences. And so that, but I'm telling you, I lecture to medical students and in all the years of medical school, nobody ever talks to them about trauma. They don't hear the word trauma. Can you believe that? That in 2015, students at UBC don't hear the word trauma

unless I say to them in the one lecture that I give them in five years and four years. And the same thing is true in large universities in the states as well so that the denial of trauma is endemic to medical practice and in this society well i want to get into all the childhood development stuff uh and and the sort of traumas that that uh you know incite this kind of behavior uh in so many people But before we do that, I think it's worth kind of exploring, you know, the more expansive idea of definition that you adhere to in the sense that, you know, our dialogue around addiction and addiction disease really is focused on substance, right?

But on some level, it can be argued, and I know that you argue, that addiction really is a much more mass, cultural, societal issue that can be applicable, not just substances, but transcend substances to any kind of behavior pattern that provides that dopamine release and ultimately negative consequences in your life. Yeah, and I'm not the first one to raise that point.

The point was raised decades ago. The drug addiction is one particular manifestation, but really you can be addicted to sex, obviously, gambling, a whole lot of respectable things like work and sports. Anything that takes you out of the moment and provides that temporary release. Now, what I have done in this book is brought together the scientific evidence for the first time, that not only is this true psychologically, it's also true even physiologically, so that

if you look at the brains of sex addicts or shopping addicts or food addicts, it's the same circuits that are involved as are involved in drug addiction. So even on the level of physiological changes in the brain we're looking at the same changes just that some people use and need chemicals to achieve those changes other people get it through behaviors but the gambler is still after a dopamine hit dopamine being the incentive motivation chemical he's not after the money because if it was about the money he would quit after he won his first jackpot right but it's about actually the dopamine hit that he gets that temporary state of elation and excitement

that he gets when he's engaged in the activity so all all all addictions whether they're behaviors or substances or whatever they are they serve the same psychological purpose of escape from suffering and pain, discomfort with the self, and they activate the same brain circuits with the same neurochemicals. So there's only one universal addiction process, drug addiction being a small, small manifestation of that. Right, and because it's so divorced from logic and rational thinking, I think that's what prevents a lot of people from really truly understanding it and why the conversation around it has to do with judgment and shame and criminology. Well, I think if you want to explore that minefield, we can. I think on the individual level, the judgment and the disdain for drug addicts is actually well expressed by Jesus

when he says, don't be a hypocrite, he says. That's the word he uses. He says, before you try to remove the sliver from your brother's eye, remove the pole from your own eye. And so what it is, is that when there's something we don't like about ourselves,

then we'll look at that same thing in somebody else and reject it and imagine that we're different. So the workaholic businessman, or the workaholic doctor for that matter, or the shopaholic man or woman. The guy who spends $8,000 on CDs. CDs in a week. I've heard of people like that. And they like to think of themselves as superior to the drug addict, and yet the dynamic is the same,

which is being in the grip of a compulsion that you can't control, and that has negative consequences, and you don't have the power, at least you perceive that you don't have the power, to regulate yourself. And so we see that in somebody else, and it's so easy then to look at the externals, which is that somebody's in the back alley in the downtown east side of Vancouver shooting up with heroin or cocaine. Oh, they're different from the rest of us. No, they're not.

They're only different in their expression of their addiction and they're also different in their socioeconomic background often and also, of course, in the degree of trauma that they experience as children. Well, let's talk about backgrounds and your perspective on the root of addictive behavior patterns that start to form and take place in early childhood development and the experience or the environment or the child-rearing habitat of a young person that begins actually in fetus,

according to how you're how you're looking at this well i have to emphasize again that yes it's according to how i look at it but it's not a personal view i'm just talking about the research literature i'm talking about the evidence so what we know is that already in utero, the emotional states of the mother affect the neurological development of the infant. So when mothers are highly stressed, that infant is experiencing a lot of stress hormones reaching him or her through the umbilical cord. And that interferes with healthy brain development and then when the child is born into a situation of stress many more things happen that further affects brain development so that the first fact to

to really recognize here which is again is not taught in the medical schools yet even though scientifically it's not even vaguely controversial anymore is that the brain develops an interaction with the environment so when we talk about addiction as a brain disease yes there's truth to that but what shapes the brain is the environment and the necessary condition for healthy brain development is non-stressed parents who can really connect with the child so you can see in our society why so many people are affected because how many parents are non-stressed how many parents how many parents have the kind of support that traditionalist societies used to provide the clan the tribe

the extended family where the child is always around adults so looking after him you know not that i want to romanticize the past or nor that we can go back to it, but we've lost something. And so in this society, which is so disconnected, alienated, parents are, even if they're together, and 40% of the time they're not, but even if they are, they're both having to go to work, they're both under severe strain economically very often, relationship stresses, the spiritual emptiness in people's lives. Kids are being born into situations that no longer support healthy brain development. If on top of that, they're actually abused, which is what happens to most severe addicts, specific abuse in the form of physical beating, sexual exploitation, abandonment, neglect, emotional torment, that plays havoc not only with the personality development,

not only does it give you a lot of pain that later you have to just soothe somehow, but it also distorts your brain development. And then suddenly you have the template for addiction. Right. And so, I mean, what happens specifically is some sort of emotional defense mechanism is cultivated in the brain chemistry that leads to repressing that painful experience?

Or how does that work, actually? Well, okay, so let's separate emotional experiences and defenses from physiological chemical events, okay? So on a chemical level level take a substance like cocaine or crystal meth or nicotine or caffeine these are stimulants they elevate the level of a chemical in the brain which we referred to already called dopamine and dopamine is the incentive vitality excitement molecule without Without that, we're listless, bored, amotivated, disinterested, inert. So the dopamine circuitry is crucial to human life and human motivation.

But the development of the dopamine circuitry depends on the presence of a nurturing parent. So if you take infant monkeys and they measure their dopamine level one week after separation from the mother, their dopamine levels are significantly diminished. And dopamine receptors are diminished when there's a lot of stress around. Or you can isolate monkeys or rats and put them into an isolation cage and then measure the dopamine receptors a month later it's significantly diminished so they so the brain is responsive to the environment and especially in early childhood so there's the chemical effects that's not the only one but that's one of the major ones but then there's the psychological

defenses so that a child under severe emotional stress has got very limited resources to deal with that they can't fight back they can't escape and they can't change the situation so now the brain kicks in with its automatic defenses one of them is emotional shutdown so now you no longer have feel the emotion because they're too painful but if you you don't feel emotion, life becomes very dull and boring. You might have to do drugs to feel better. Right. Or you might tune out as a way of not experiencing the stress. So you adapt by tuning out.

But if that gets programmed into your brain, later on you've got this condition called ADD. Right. Which is characterized by extreme tuning out. But if that gets programmed into your brain, later on you've got this condition called ADD, which is characterized by extreme tuning out. So what happens is that these early defenses help kids survive the immediate stress but become sources of dysfunction later on. Right. I have people in my life that I know that come from a background

of pretty significant emotional stress and and anytime i observe them in a scenario in which any kind of conflict even if it's very modest they'll detach that yeah detach it's almost like they go into a fugue state exactly and you can't even reach them and they're they're trying to protect themselves well they're not trying to do anything they're not even even doing it. It's not conscious. No, the brain is doing it. So the brain goes into automatic defense mode, which is programmed in childhood.

Right. So the point again being, as you said, that early adaptations become sources of pathology and dysfunction later on. So we have to keep in mind that this is happening at least on two levels. There's the brain physiological level, which I've already talked about, and then there's the psycho-emotional level. And the two go along together.

And we can also talk about the relational level, like what happens to people that are hurt in their relationships, is that either they withdraw from a relationship at the first sign of problems, or they desperately throw themselves into a relationship hoping to be rescued one or the other now they become sex and relationship addicts right um it happens on the spiritual level where i think increasingly we can agree that human beings have a need for meaning at least in life a need for connection for belonging a larger sense than just the isolated ego. Well, when you're hurt or when you're traumatized or just when you suffer, you tend to isolate and you lose that connection.

And so whether it's physiological, psychological, emotional, physiological, psychological, emotional, physiological, spiritual, relational. And you have to look at addiction on all these levels. You're hobbled. You're disabled. You're impaired. And then addiction is a desperate attempt to avoid the impacts of all that. Right.

And trying to better understand, you know, my own addiction and journey through sobriety and kind of taking, you know, the information and the wisdom that you provide. You know, I look back on my childhood development and my background and, you know, certainly it's an easy case when you can, you know, in the example that you raised And, you know, certainly it's an easy case when you can, you know, in the example that you raised of, you know, hardcore drug addicts that almost invariably come from some form of abuse, whether emotional or physical. In my case, I was raised by two loving parents that are still together. There's no, you know, great indicia of alcoholism in my genetic background. And so I can't, like, it's been challenging for me

to play the victim, or to, I'm sorry, to place blame on any particular person or my parents. It's also an uncomfortable feeling to even examine that. You know, certainly I could say, well, my parents were stressed. an uncomfortable feeling to even examine that um you know certainly i could say well my parents were stressed or do you want do you want to i don't know sometimes my parents listen to the podcast well so what yeah so okay but look first of all how you phrase it

uh you said first of all play the victim okay now that's a telling phrase okay in what in what way you're distancing yourself from something okay you're actually denying your own vulnerability it's not a question of playing victim it's a question of what happened to you when you were vulnerable secondly you talk about avoiding blaming parents who the heck wants to blame parents i don't blame parents i screwed up my kids but i don't blame myself. I screwed up my kids, but I don't blame myself. I did my very best. I was a loving parent. Well, I would think on some level, no parents are perfect, right?

That's the point. They're all sort of creating emotional stress for their children. Yeah, but I'm telling you very specifically, and I just had this conversation with somebody else before I came here. It usually takes me less than five minutes, usually only three, to show somebody how they suffered when they didn't think they did.

And that's not because I make up anything, but it's because people protect themselves from their own suffering as a way of protecting their relationship with their parents. And so you have a fear of alienating your parents. Of course. As a result of which, perhaps you haven't delved into your own experience deeply enough to really understand it yet. Whether you want to do that here on air,

it's totally up to you. But I'm just saying, that's the dynamic that I perceive all the time. And I'm also telling you, it's not about blaming your parents. It's not about denying that they loved you. It's not about denying that they loved you. It's not about denying that they did their very best. We're not interested in them at all, actually, in this conversation

as either good guys or bad guys. We're just interested in what was the experience of the child and what was the impact of that experience on the child. This question of either being victims or blaming others I don't speak that language I'm not totally interested in in either victim or either seeing people as victims or as blaming anybody right well well let's play this out so I mean I certainly kind of identify with with uh you know the hungry ghost idea as I said earlier and you know i was a kid who was always pretty sensitive and okay so you're sensitive yeah so what does that mean so what does that mean to

be sensitive it means that i'm easily uh impacted by external stimuli that's exactly what it is my emotional well that's exactly what it is so sensitive comes from the latin word sincere to feel so the sensitive child feels more so less has to happen if you if I touch you on the shoulder right now with my fingers tapped you lightly you'd have no pain at all but if your shoulder was bare with a burn on it so your nerve endings were close to the surface so you were thin skinned and if I tapped you with the same force now what would you feel pain of course severe pain and the external stimulus was the same. To anybody looking at it from the outside,

what happened? What happens is that you're very sensitive, okay? That's the genetic factor. It's the only genetic factor, by the way, okay? So nobody's genetically condemned to addiction, but some people are born more sensitive than others. Yeah, there could be a predisposition, but not a predeterminism. that predisposition is a sensitivity it's not actually

a predisposition to a specific addiction either it's just a sensitivity but carry on so you're a sensitive child so okay yeah and and you know some of the tropes that you hear in in recovery you know always feeling like everyone else had a road roadmap for for life and kind of feeling isolated and alone and having difficulty making friends and connecting with people. Okay, isolated and alone. Have you ever remembered feeling sad or unhappy as a kid? Of course. Who did you speak to about that?

Probably nobody. Don't give me the probably. Well, I mean, it's been a while. I would think that, let me think about sounds like nobody okay yeah i mean i was i was definitely a kid lost and lost in my own thoughts and in my own world okay well so stay with me for a minute you don't have children yet i take it no i do have kids okay you do have kids okay great how old are they i have two daughters that are eight and 11, and I have two step-sons. Okay, so you tell me, if they're feeling sad and lonely, who do you want them to talk to?

I want them to talk to me and my wife. Right. And if you found out through some third source that your children were sad and lonely, but they hadn't talked to you, how would you understand that? It would be heartbreaking. No, no, but I'm not talking... Yes, it would be, but how would you talked to you how would you understand that uh it would be heartbreaking no no but i'm not talking yes it would be but how would you explain it how would you understand it how would i understand what they're going through how do you understand why i haven't why they haven't talked to you i think i would understand them as feeling unsafe in having that kind of dialogue and how does a child feel when they're unsafe with their parents? When they feel unsafe,

they feel anxious. Yeah. They feel... Hurt? Hurt, fearful perhaps. Okay, that's your childhood. Yeah. If we say nothing more,

you can see how a sensitive child would be deeply hurt by that situation. So by the time you have recollection you had already learned that your parents on the emotional level were somehow not quite available to you as much as they loved you

they didn't know how to make because whatever was happening for them they were stressed, they were distracted whatever was going on but that doesn't matter, we're not blaming them we're just saying that they couldn't give you that what you needed right and and i'm feeling like all this extreme discomfort right now because i love my parents and i know that they did the very best and i grant you that and i grant you that and and i grant you that but but we're not again we're not putting them on trial. We're just talking about what your situation was.

And what was the impact of that situation? Now, anybody ever bully you as a kid? Yeah, I definitely had that experience. Okay, how old were you when you were bullied? I think a lot of that started when I switched schools from a school that was relatively nurturing to my proclivities to kind of a macho kind of sports-focused school where I felt very unsafe throughout from like 7th grade to 12th grade. So you felt bullied there? Yeah.

Who did you speak to about that? I did talk to my mom. How soon? I would speak to her after any kind of incident would occur at school. And what would happen when you did? She would comfort me, but I would return to the school. Okay. Now, if your kid was bullied on a chronic basis,

and they complained to you about it, what would you like to do about it? I mean, I would do anything. I would jump in front of a train. I would probably change their environment. Okay. So you learned that it was futile to complain. Again, you were left alone with it.

Guess what you became? An endurance athlete. A macho endurance athlete who drove himself. Right. I mean, I think my first drug of choice was I discovered the sport of swimming when I was like 12 or 14 and yeah and that was my comfort you know underwater yeah i even wrote my college essay about it like the that was the safe place that i could go underwater yeah where nobody could get to me okay which further isolated me of course i mean but i

had friends and i had a community there i got i got it i don't know if you read about this woman who died a few months ago a free diver a russian woman did you read that story i did yeah do you know what she said no i don't well i it's on my cell phone here because i copied it out she said that underwater you feel at one with the universe and your mind stops and you're just totally present but she had to go there to achieve that state that state is the state that we all strive for under or over water

she could only get it under water she ended up dying now I'm not cautioning people against free diving I'm just saying that she too was looking for it. It wasn't just the physical thrill. She was actually looking for spiritual release. And that's what you're describing as well.

Yeah, there's no question that that is what that was about. Of course, unconsciously at the time. Of course, unconsciously. And I was being rewarded for it. And so then I would double down on my commitment to that. Yeah, and I wasn't the athlete that you were. So I got rewarded for it. And so then I would double down on my commitment to that. Yeah. And I wasn't the athlete that you were. So I got rewarded for my intellectual skills.

And, you know, so that's what I built up. You know, and being helpful. And that's your safe place. And that's my safe place. That's also my addiction then. You know, thinking too much, helping people and all that. You know, so we all use what we've got in order to somehow divert ourselves from our pain. And so, look, what I'm saying to you is that,

and I'm not going to ask you more questions about your childhood, but can you possibly get that you've already revealed enough to see why you might have been in emotional pain as a child? Yes, of course. Okay, that's all. I would surmise that most children experience some kind of emotional pain growing up. It's unavoidable. So what is the distinguishing factor?

It is avoidable, but not in this society. You know, there are societies that don't hurt their kids like the way we do. Yeah, and there's a whole interesting conversation that we can have about materialism and toxic culture that I know you speak to quite a bit. My next book. But in any case, you're quite right. In this society, very few escape that, which is why addictions you're quite right in this society very few escape that which is why addictions are so rife in our society so we're not saying there's anything uniquely horrible

about your experience on the contrary a lot of people had it a lot worse if you want to compare suffering which i don't believe in by the way but but the point is that we're not it's no point me coming to you now you could you tell me if at age 11 or age six you feel sad and lonely and you come and say to me gabor i feel sad and lonely would it be any use for me to tell you well don't worry about it it's the same for everybody is that what you need to hear no that just that will further drive me into deeper isolation and despair which is what you're doing to yourself right now you know to say that everybody's like that so what is everybody like that everybody's got their own particular experience and we have to honor the person's experience all i'm saying is that's not

yes it's true that that that children are often hurt or isolated and misunderstood in our society because we're so unconscious and we're so disconnected as a society and so harassed and harried and stressed as a culture. That's all true. But when it comes to understanding on any one particular human being, that's not meaningful. What is meaningful is what was their own particular experience. And if you're very sensitive as i said earlier

less has to happen to create pain for you right so would that be the distinguishing factor between somebody who uh could have had the experience that i had and then goes on to be a social drinker or somebody who needs sort of temporary relief from time to time but it doesn't become uh you know it doesn't rise to the level of addiction where it it creates negative consequences in their life and somebody like myself who it you know i took it to the wall sensitivity could certainly one of the factors for sure but there could be other factors as well maybe that other somebody just had one person they could talk to who would actually understand them and validate them maybe right so community community or just even human contact with anybody right you know i mean it's a human contact not that you didn't have human contact but i mean

validating somebody validating your experience and what has been called a compassionate witness experience and what has been called a compassionate witness so as a matter of fact I mean as you all know from recovery what makes the difference ultimately is not just one's own individual willpower and and determination but also others who can listen to you compassionately and validate your experience and not judge you. Yeah, I mean, my journey has been one of trying to overcome my predisposition towards self-will and self-reliance to a place of surrender, right?

Because when I track back over the course of my life, it's very easy for me to make an argument that everything that happened that was good growing up, or any accomplishment that I was able to do, is a result of my work ethic and doubling down and being focused to overcome whatever circumstance I was in to kind of get to the next level. You know, addiction, my alcoholism was the first instance in which that no longer was applicable. And the more that I tried to apply myself well to this problem, the deeper of a hole that I dug for myself. Right. Until I could, you know, could surrender, you know, as you will hear all the time is so closely aligned with this idea of giving up,

which is so antithetical to the way that I wanted to approach my life. So it was a journey to get to that place of willingness in order to entertain a different way. Well, and my point is that some people criticize the first step as admitting that you're powerless, as why you're telling people that they're abused that they're powerless. My point is the opposite, that it's when you admit that you're powerless people that they're abused that they're powerless my point is the opposite that it's when you admit that you're powerless that you gain power that you actually when you actually get how it is

but why is it so difficult to understand that well because because the people who make that argument are still identified with their childhood vulnerabilities. And so I'm never going to make myself powerless again. They think that powerlessness in that sense opens you up to being hurt.

Where actually that surrender is actually the way out of the hurt. But let me come back to you just for a moment. So this ethic that you had, that I need to do this myself and I can do this and so on. Well, think about that. Do you want your kids to have that?

No. How would you make sure that they don't? I would imagine by trying to help them to understand that making your way in the world is an interdependent act. That the way, the path towards whatever your goal is or your dreams, your aspirations for your life is contingent upon the community that you cultivate. Okay, so that's intellectually true. But how will you support that understanding in them

i think by trying to help them foster uh an ethic of open communication and feeling safe with with communicating with who well with with myself and my wife first and foremost and then their siblings and then extrapolating out from there. That's the whole point. So that's what you lacked. And therefore you developed a coping mechanism. I can do this all by myself. Now, it is true that you want to foster self-reliance

and internal resilience and initiative. That's true. But the pathway towards doing that is the same as the pathway towards fostering relational health, which is by giving the children

the environment where they can actually feel listened to and validated and supported. And this is what so many of us didn't get. It might be interesting for you at some point to speak with your parents and, you know,

depending on the relationship that you have with them and say, okay, look, just tell me about your marriage when I was a kid. Never mind what you didn't do for me. Like, I know you did your very best. I love you very much.

I honor you. But tell me about your lives. What was it like for you what stresses were you under what were you carrying from your own childhood yeah i mean what was what was happening in your larger family you know what were the work stresses just what was how was your relationship you know all the all those questions yeah i mean i think in in in my mother's case she suffered a tremendous amount of trauma uh okay in in in her life she lost her father when she was still in

college and then when i was very young uh she lost her brother in a car accident oh my god okay now imagine this amount of pain in her life and and stress and it's manifested you know in stress and anxiety and and being somebody who is um uh very risk averse and I think that that manifested in my life as a parent who was perhaps overprotective there's no such thing as overprotective you can either be protective or not protective

what you're talking about is controlling now that comes out of anxiety she was anxious so she wanted to protect you by controlling but the impact on you is loss of autonomy. And just imagine your poor mother's state of mind when her brother dies. She just lost her father, not that many years before. Now she's a relatively young mom, and she loses her brother in a car accident.

And then she's got this small child to look after. What could be her state of mind? Right, I mean, it's informed her worldview. And I think that it has made her kind of terrified of externalities that she can't control. Okay. But it also, just her state of mind, would it be sadness, grief, maybe depression, a lot of stress. And sadness, grief, depression, stress acts as a screen between the parent's love for the child and the child.

And it's nothing the parent is doing on purpose. So we know, for example, that postpartum depression is a significant risk factor for childhood developmental problems. It's got nothing to do with how much the mother loves the child, how devoted she is. It's just

children pick up on their parents' emotions automatically and they imbibe, they absorb the parents' emotions and they think it's about them absorb the parents' emotions and they think it's about them. So when my mother is sad, as my mother was, because of the situation as I write about in the book, in the Second World War, Jewish family and Nazi-occupied Hungary, her grief

and her unhappiness to the infant means that she's not happy with me. And so my self-esteem is undermined. Not because my mother didn't love me. She loved me fiercely and desperately. But just because children absorb and are shaped by the emotional states

of their parents. And those emotional states are not deliberate on the part of the parent. I mean, your mother was not a grief-struck, grieving young mother because she wanted to be. But the fact that she was. And furthermore, if you were living in a clan-based society, where there's a lot of aunts, uncles, elders, neighbors, even living under the same roof perhaps, well then, that mother who has suffered that loss has got a lot of support. one singular person on a young child's life is diminished and replaced in some part by other people that can pick up the slack and provide a tapestry of emotional support. That's exactly right. And that's why it takes a village.

Yeah, it does. We try to cultivate that with our kids too. We have a very much of a open house kind of situation with lots of people coming in. And there's a lot of adults that are around our kids for that very reason wonderful yeah which is great and you know we've moved away from that it is true and it's a society we have you know in this internet culture of seemingly never you know being more connected than we are we're we're lonelier and and more isolated than than ever yeah so let me talk about why are, so to go back to your original point, yes, there are very few children in our society who are not significantly affected by these dynamics,

regardless of the parents' best efforts. So, now, until we get conscious around it, and it sounds like you and your parenting have developed some consciousness, but most of it is just most of it is just sort of trying to get by

you were just trying to pay the bills and keep you know put food on the plate yeah and keep the relationship going and do the right thing

and we're not conscious of what we've lost as a society and and your own consciousness was probably

gained at or through dealing with your own addictions. You're probably much more conscious as a parent. Oh, of course. And it's that adage of being the grateful alcoholic because it's catapulted me into a life based more on spiritual principles than maybe, or perhaps I would have ever been introduced to, you know, but you know, when I went away to college, I went to the, the other coast. And that's when I discovered drugs and alcohol and, and that was the solution. That wasn't the problem.

That was what made me feel whole until, you know, it played itself out and took me to some dark places. But, you know, as that kind of unfolded, predictably, that's where the shame and the low self-esteem and the self-judgment and all of that comes in as you start to bifurcate into this kind of double life existence that further isolates you and alienates you from your community. I'm almost impelled to say that you were fortunate to have become an alcoholic because, you see, my addictions to work and to shopping, they're respectable ones.

You don't suffer the consequences to the same degree so that you don't get the same wake-up call. No, I'm not wishing I'd been an alcoholic, but actually, if I'm honest about it, sometimes when I meet people who've been through recovery from severe addiction, there's a sense of envy almost, because they really have been forced by their intense suffering to go very deep with themselves.

Well, pain is the only thing that really motivates people to change their ways, right? So how much pain can you bear before? I know, but unfortunately, if it was only only pain there'd be a lot less suffering it takes more than just pain but yeah it's true we we there's a greek uh there's a line i'm reading in a greek play i i was looking through recently where they say we suffer into truth we suffer into truth and so the more intense the suffering sometimes the deeper the appreciation of truth. And a lot of the spiritual teachers will tell you that. I'm reading Eckhart Tolle these days with a lot of gratitude. And he talks about how sometimes the suffering is

so intense that it just burns away the ego and then you and then you then you get the truth yeah but i would say also i'm interested in your perspective on this so so you know i get sober and and my sobriety is buttressed by community and the 12 steps and the principles and the sort of work that i do uh in that program and service oriented and and sort of living my life premised on these spiritual principles that have, you know, really given me this amazing life that I'm very grateful for. And yet at the same time, you know, I'm, you know, I'm certainly not cured. You know, it's, it's like having all of these things in place to, you know, keep me walking, you know, the correct

path. It's still a process what would mean to you cured would mean that that's the impulse to drink or use or to try to check out of the present through any number of behavior patterns that are inconsistent with you know how i would like to live my life that create negative consequences no longer enter my consciousness so you'd like to be a jesus or a brother yeah there's a high ambition i would i would yeah okay yeah well good luck so i mean yeah but but i mean kind of in in brass t, you know, day-to-day life, you know, gratitude is a fleeting experience for me. You know, my default state is not gratitude. My default state is irritability, anxiety, judgment, frustration.

Yeah, my default state is irritability as well. Well, now look, what you're talking about now is, first of all, let's just eliminate the word cure here, okay? We're not talking about cure. We're talking about wholeness, okay? And it just means you've got more work to do. So it's a question of how committed you are to the work. And I know for me, those are my default states as well.

I can't help that. I can't help that that's my default state. I didn't create that. That's a consequence of experiences. What I can make a choice about is how I relate to all that and how I live my life and what structures, supports, practices do I engage in that helps me deal with that irritability when it arises, that urge to check out when it arises.

So that's very much up to me. And, you know, this is my fourth book and it's had tremendous response and I said my others and I travel out speaking all over North America and internationally and very often people have said to me boy I wish I had read your book 30 years ago and my joke always was gee maybe I should read it myself because on the one hand I can say these things and teach people and help people, but there was this tremendous gap between my internal and personal life and what I can manifest on the stage or in a seminar room. And I can say now, but I'm 71.

And I can say now that that gap is narrowing significantly. But that's because I'm actually doing the work. Yeah, the aspiration is the commitment to the work and to the process, right? So if you're doing the work, then inevitably it'll pay off. And it's not helpful to talk about yourself as not being cured.

You're not a piece of meat. You don't have to be cured. You just need to integrate. And that's a lifelong process. And again, as Eckhart Tolle says, that for some people it happens as a sudden illumination. That's essentially what happened to him. But for more people, it's work.

It's ongoing work yeah i mean self-knowledge is insufficient i could read your book cover to cover i could read it every week for the rest of my life but if i don't extract from your book principles that can translate into actions that i can take on a daily basis to narrow that gap then then it's not really going to help me or anyone else right it's it's it's the it's not really going to help me or anyone else, right? It's the practice. And I would point out another dimension there

is that there's a difference between self-knowledge and knowledge about the self. Explain that. Well, you can know about yourself intellectually, but that wouldn't be self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is experiential, where you actually experience your true self. That's self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is experiential, where you actually experience your true self. That's self-knowledge.

It's got nothing to do with the intellect. And you're totally right. I could read all these wonderful books that I have over the years, many dozens. I could write these books full of insight and, I I'd say wisdom and science. That's not self-knowledge. That's knowledge about the self.

And it's a different level of knowing. Because, you know, we have these different levels of knowing. There's the intellectual knowing. There's the intuitive knowing. And there's levels of knowing. There is the intellectual knowing, there is the intuitive knowing, and there is the experiential knowing. And the deepest one is the experiential one, when you have actually said, Yes, this is the Self. Ah, here I am. And even then, it takes practice to maintain that space, because the world so quickly robs you of it.

You know, alcoholism and addiction are ciphers to compel one to face that and walk that path and undertake that journey. Yes. But for, you know, I'm putting myself in the shoes of somebody who might be listening who is not afflicted in that way, or at least not on a, I mean, in your mind, it's a spectrum.

They're afflicted in a different way. In a different way, perhaps less severe. The idea of experiential self-knowledge or, you know, what that journey would look like is a foreign concept to a lot of people like how does one even begin to crack the seal on what that means on a day-to-day basis well look I mean the Buddha when he sat on the Bodhi tree and meditated all those days after having followed this or that practice of severe abstention or self-flagellation and spiritual exploration he was dealing with the problem of human suffering which is not restricted to specific addicts only it's a human condition

because that disconnection from the self happens to everybody and uh everybody suffers now we can cover up that suffering with the munificence of our consumer society and that's why the desperation by the way but right the the great Henry David Thoreau quote, the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, and what is considered resignation is confirmed desperation. Yeah. So I'm not sure that you're right about the listener who hasn't suffered addiction and afflicted in the same degree.

People in all walks of life know somehow, and they will even say, I just don't know myself, I don't know who I am I don't know what's my purpose in life and all that so those are all states of disconnection from the self very common in our society so I actually think a lot of people would understand what we're talking about even if they haven't suffered degrees of trauma and compensations for trauma such as maybe you have or to the degree that i have so in a real world context the process of of beginning to probe into um you know the deeper more authentic self within um you know what is the what is the practice of that um by recognizing well again

since i'm reading eckhart these days i'll quote him he says that mankind's greatest achievement is not um our architecture and our science and our creations but the recognition of our own insanity so the first thing is, you've got to get that it's not working for you. I mean, if you don't get that, you just continue to tread the same. Well, there's so many layers that have to be peeled back. I mean, we're immersed in,

and this gets into toxic culture and materialism, like the society in which we live in is predicated upon these ideals that are uh in certain respects you know antithetical to to this journey you know we're sort of fed this message of climbing the corporate ladder and you know uh keeping up with the joneses and and you know in a competitive kind of um accumulation uh focused and prioritized way of living that is simply fomenting more suffering

and further divorcing ourselves from that true nature. Yeah. So you have to be able to pierce that to even begin, I would think. You just have to get that you're suffering. I mean, you just have to get that. That's the first thing. If you don't know that you're suffering. I mean, you just have to get that. That's the first thing. If you don't know that you're suffering, you're not going to pierce anything.

You're not going to look for anything. So then you can start, and if you realize that you're suffering, then you can start asking the question why. And then you can look at your own life and you look at society and everything else. But it's got to begin with uh some sense that things ain't right with you now here's um i can give you any number of quotes the tibetan

book of living and dying talks about how the selling of samsara which is of illusion is the major function of our society and And here's Thomas Merton, who is a Catholic monk and spiritual teacher, who wrote in 1948 or 50, something like this. He says, It is true that the materialistic society, the so-called culture that has evolved under the tender mercies of capitalism,

has produced what seems to be the ultimate limit of worldliness. And nowhere perhaps except in the analogous society of pagan Rome has there ever been such a flowering of cheap and petty and disgusting lusts and vanities as in the world of capitalism where there's no evil that is not fostered and encouraged for the sake of making money. evil that is not fostered and encouraged for the sake of making money you know and and uh and he talks about you know that we we restrain every human limit every desire every human desire to the limit um to create as many new desires and synthetic passions as possible in order to cater

to them with the products of our factories and printing presses and movie studios and all the rest this is 60 years before the internet you know or 50 years before the internet and so that we live in a society that that that feeds off the hungry ghost and so we we keep creating nobody does this deliberately although actually they actually, they do. They do. Yeah, I was going to take issue with that. Yeah, but you know what? But they can't create the hungry ghost. They can cater to it, but they can't create it. In other words, a Coca-Cola company might tell you that the greatest joy in the world is to drink a can of Coke,

which is what they're telling you, that nothing means as much as drinking a can of Coke. But you have to be be hungry ghost to believe it right and that that and then comes in this the you know the persistence of this illusion that it will lead to your happiness is astonishing and despite despite never reaching it you think this is the next time where it's actually going to work well a doctor friend of mine said that it's hard to get enough it's impossible it's difficult to get enough of something that almost works. That's the thing, right? If you can come up with that very product, then you will be a master of capitalism.

Yeah, and I kept thinking too, if only I achieve this, I attain that. If my books sell this many copies or if I'm on this program you know or or if i buy this many come back this then i'll be complete and happy you know it's always that next thing you know of course and by the way and as a buddhist teacher said um just one more is the binding factor in the cycle of suffering right right right right and and it leaves me wondering if Eckhart Tolle ever you know checks his Amazon ranking or has he transcended the the mortal coil in that regard it'd be interesting we all we all live in the world it means does he it'd be interesting to find out my guess is that he would not be checking that yeah I would imagine he does that yeah I'm just the way

I read him and not just in his reading, but when I see him in his videos and one time in person, it doesn't strike me that he needs to do that. And even for myself, I don't need to do it either. Not that I don't ever, but it fluctuates.

So the degree to which I'm impelled to do it depends on... Well, it's a barometer of your spiritual and emotional health. At that moment. Right. Exactly, yeah. Right, right. So no, I don't think so.

I don't think that he would. I'd be very much surprised if he did. Right. Well, we're running out of time, and there's a couple things I still want to talk to you about. I mean, really kind of the core undercurrent of your message with respect to how we kind of, you know, treat and perceive addicts and addiction culture is really a cry for more empathy and love.

And the idea that man's natural state is one of empathy and love, right? And so when we were talking about how, you know, you and I share this predisposition to irritability or anxiety or what have you. Programming. Yeah, it's this programming. I think I heard you in another interview saying the idea of second nature came up. It's my second nature to be anxious, to be irritable. And just let's dissect that phrase, second nature,

because it implies that we have a first nature. Exactly. And our first nature is, according to all the scientific research or at least overwhelming scientific research is that our true nature is to be compassionate, to be sharing,

to be cooperative, to be loving actually. None of which is championed in our culture. Well, the opposite is championed. So that is our first nature and we suffer precisely because we're divorced from

our first nature yeah it's that it's that um separation from that true state that is the the kernel of suffering that gets fertilized yes and so it also means that since it is our first nature and our true nature, even the word recovery, what does it mean? It means to find something. Right, to return to a natural state. Exactly. So the recovery actually is returning to who we actually are.

But the who and the what that we are, that we got disconnected from. And that's what it means to recover. And that can be a lifelong process, but it's not a bad thing. That's not a bad thing. It's a worthy journey to undertake. Yeah, yeah. Because it's not about,

as with all journeys, it's not about, if you do it right, it's not about the destination. It's about the destination when you get there, but it's not about the destination. It's about the destination when you get there, but it's not about the destination. It's about each step along the way. And the willingness to undertake that step.

Yeah. And to keep generating that willingness, because I can say I have the willingness Tuesday, but it's totally absent for me on Wednesday. And then I you know then I took you what's going on here you know so it's just a constant willingness to engage it however it is at that moment and whenever I've thought I've arrived somewhere life will come along and say buddy you think you've arrived somewhere let me just show you exactly where you're at yeah and then something will happen that will show me exactly yeah that mirror will show up the mirror

will always show up and it shows up pretty quickly yes um all right well i want to close it down with one final question which is uh if if you woke up in some bizarre parallel universe and found yourself to be a surgeon general the united states um you know understanding that the system is what it is and and is inherently limited in that regard you know where would your focus be placed in terms of of changing policy and first of all reframing legislation around recovery and i would pass a law i would pass a law that says it's illegal to use the word addict that every time you wanted to use the word addict instead you had to say

he or she you can't use as an addict you'd have to say he or she is a human being who suffered immensely and has turned to substances or other behaviors to soothe their suffering so that every time you thought of addiction or an addict substances or their behaviors to soothe their suffering.

So that every time you thought of addiction or an addict, you had to frame it in those terms. No, that immediately, that would immediately transform the conversation. And it would immediately be self-evident of how destructive, inhumane, retrograde our current attitudes are and our current policies are.

And when I say attitudes and policies, I mean the legal ones, the psychological ones, and the medical ones. So we just have to reform the conversation. Reframe the conversation. And, you know, know see i don't really believe in you you can't legislate compassion uh you can legislate cruelty but you can't legislate compassion so my uh in fact i i'm part of a new non-profit called compassion

for addiction and i and i think that, if we adopted that attitude of compassion and if we talked about it in the terms that I just outlined, we would have not only a much more fruitful approach to treating addiction, we'd also be a lot happier as a society because we'd be much more closer to who we really are, which is compassionate and social-minded. I love that. That's beautiful.

Yeah. Thanks for talking to me today. It's my pleasure. Thank you. So many things that I had jotted down in my notebook here I wanted to talk to you about that we didn't even come close to getting to. So perhaps I can convince you to sit down with me at some future point and continue the conversation.

Yeah, why don't we do that when my next book comes up that would be great happy to happy to do that i appreciate all the work that you're doing it's making a a large impact and it is changing lives and um it's inspiring uh to hear your message and just thank you well thanks so much all right peace plants plants wow that was uh that was intense he doesn't mess about does he i feel like he went right to my heart like he just penetrated directly to my core uh a very uh pivotal conversation i believe in the evolution of my relationship with myself and my perception of my addiction and i hope that you guys got something out of that that you found it informative and instructive he is an amazing guy um very blessed to have spent that time with him uh there were so many additional topics that i wanted to explore with him we just didn't get

to it we didn't have the time we didn't the bandwidth. So hopefully I can convince him to sit down with me again. You can learn more about Dr. Mate at drgabormate.com, D-R-G-A-B-O-R-M-A-T-A.com. Tons of articles there on his website. Information about all of his upcoming appearance dates are there if you want to see him in person, which I highly recommend. Uh, and please do yourself a favor and make a point of checking out Dr. Mate's books. Uh, I love in the realm of hungry ghosts, close encounters with addiction. Uh, that's perhaps my favorite of all of his books. It really speaks to me.

His other books are called scattered, how attention deficit disorder originates and what you can do about it. Other books are called Scattered, How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It, When the Body Says No, Exploring the Stress-Disease Connection. And he has a fourth book called Hold On to Your Kids. All great books. I will put links to all of those books plus a ton of additional articles, background videos, and other materials and resources related to today's conversation all up in the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com. I put a ton of time into compiling these show notes, as does my colleague Chris Swan, so please make a point of checking them out, read up, learn more, take your knowledge base and your podcast experience beyond the earbuds, right? That's what this is all about i'm actually going to see uh dr mate in los angeles

next week on thursday october 29th he's doing an event with ioni skye the actress uh i'm not sure if there's still tickets but if you're in la and you're interested uh maybe check it out check out his appearances page on his website there's information there and if there's tickets still available maybe i'll see you there uh if you happen to live in L.A. or your travels take you through that part of the world, maybe you're going to come into town to see Dr. Mate speak. Make a point of checking out a few of the businesses that I'm partnered with. Joy Cafe, it's our organic plant-based and gluten-free eatery in Westlake Village. You'll often see me eating lunch there pretty much every day when I'm in town. You'll often see me eating lunch there pretty much every day when I'm in town.

We're also partnered with the Karma Baker, which is a vegan and gluten-free bakery also located in Westlake Village. The podcast is a great way to serve the global community, and I'm very in touch with that right now. Having just traveled through Europe, I met so many podcast fans everywhere we went, which is really quite extraordinary. But there is also something really special about being able to serve the local community where you went, which is really quite extraordinary. But there is also something really special about being able to serve the local community where you live. And that's why I'm involved in these businesses. They're consistent with my values, and it feels really nice to kind of plant the seeds of the plant-based movement in the area where you live. So that's what that's all about. I'm really proud to be associated with these companies. So again, if you're in LA, go check them out. For all your plant power needs, visit richroll.com. Check out our new cookbook and lifestyle guide, The Plant

Power Way. We've got signed copies of that as well as signed copies of Finding Ultra. We've got Julie's Guided Meditation Program, hot item lately. We've got nutrition products, 100% organic cotton garments, plant power tech teas. We've got sticker packs, temporary tattoos. We've got limited edition art prints, basically all kinds of cool stuff to help you take your life and your health to the next level. Check out my online courses at mindbodygreen.com. Thank you for supporting the show, for telling your friends, for sharing it on social media, and for always using the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. Thanks so much, you guys. I'm looking forward to getting back home in a couple days. This has been a long time on the

road. And it's tough. It's tricky to try to put this podcast up twice a week when you're traveling and in different time zones and all of that. It's definitely not been easy. But I'm proud that I've been able to pretty much keep to the schedule. And I am looking forward to so many great conversations that I'm going to be bringing to you guys over the next couple weeks. So to pretty much keep to the schedule and I am looking forward to so many great, uh, conversations that I'm going to be bringing to you guys over the next couple of weeks. So thanks so much for taking this ride with me and I'll see you guys soon. Peace.